Valley of the Sun

Now with typo correction, though maybe not all of them.

I'm sitting in my hotel room in Phoenix, probably should go to bed even though it's 10pm here. But, let me do at least a quick dump on what's been going on. Here's the summary of the past couple of weeks:

1) I got the powder room done, but for the door casings. At least it's usable.
2) I went to four Cubs games. They were 1-3 in those games, and the three losses were miserable.
3) I saw "Superman Returns" with Matt and Ryan.
4) I got Legends #117 out the door.
5) I got pulled into a lot of things at work, and on top of that needed to get prepped for this trip to Phoenix.

I think the rest of this post I'll just deal with the powder room construction, and hit the other bits in subsequent posts:

OK, I believe when I last left off I had put in the floor uderlayment. After that, I got the floor marked where the tiling would start. I also figured out that I wouldn't be able to cut the floor tiles by etching and snapping them, like I did with the wall tile, because the floor tile is thicker and tougher. So, knowing that I had more tiling planned, I went ahead and bought a new wet saw to cut the tile (mmmm ... power tools). The wet saw made life pretty easy for the cutting, even the curves needed to fit around the toilet flange. And, since the floor tiles were only a total of 18 pieces, that part went smoothly and pretty quickly. That happened on Sunday, July 2 I guess (I can't exactly place it any more).

I know that the next step was on the 4th of July. Here's where things went to bad and then worse, and then back to OK. First, before grouting the tile, I wanted to re-install the toilet flange and waste pipe for the toilet. I'd cut off the waste drain pipe before to put in the underlayment without having to do a lot of fitting around the flange -- I just took out the toilet flange, laid out a solid piece of underlayment, then cut out the hole for the toilet from below, using the hole in the sub-floor as the template. Besides, the old toilet flange was pretty junky and a new one was in order anyway.

To re-install the flange, I'd gotten most of the PVC pipe fittings I needed before, but didn't have the actual pipe, so Matt and I went to Menard's to pick up some of the pieces we needed. OK, I now blame Menard's for the next foolishness. They sell 5' and 10' sections of all the PVC pipe the stock, but they had no 5' pieces of the 3" pipe for the waste pipe. So, I picked up a 10' section. The pipe didn't quite fit in the car, almost though. I had the 10' of pipe in through the trunk, diagonally through the car, and resting on the dash. I looked like it was just barely going to fit, so I tried to close the trunk. That didn't quite work, the trunk popped back open. It was almost there, though, so I had Matt lift the pipe from the inside of the car, and managed to get the trunk closed.

When I got into the car, I noticed that the front edge of the pipe had hit the windshield ---- cracking it.

So, sometime while I'm here in Phoenix, Ellen and Ryan will take my car to get the windshield replaced. So, add a couple hundred dollars onto the cost of the bathroom.

If only Menard's had one of the 5' sections. I only needed 11" of it anyway.

So, we got back home, and I cut the pipe, and started gluing. Now, a couple things to know about working with PVC pipe -- the primer and cement are powerful stuff -- you don't want your nose anywhere near them. Like model cement/airplane glue to the tenth power. Second, the cement is pretty unforgiving. You have a few seconds to move the pieces (i.e. seat them tightly) before the glue starts setting and leaves the joint immobile.

Well, the first time, the pipe was a little long, by an inch. Probably because I couldn't get the pipe seated as far in fast enough before it wouldn't go any further. Having committed that far, there was really nothing to do but cut out the pieces I'd put in and try again with other pieces.

However, I didn't have extra fittings, so I sent Matt back to Menards for a 90° elbow and a short connector while I did the cutting.

Alas, there are male-female elbows, and also female-female elbows. I needed the former. Matt didn't know which I needed, and got the latter. Not his fault, I wasn't clear. So, I went to Menard's to return the piece Matt got and get the right now.

I got back, tried to install the toilet waste pipe, and then time I got the pipe about a inch short, mainly because I was trying to allow for not getting the pipe fulling seated and left too much of that allowance.

This was about 5:40, on July 4th. I'd noticed earlier that Menard's was staying open until 6pm on the 4th. So I had just barely enough time to get back to Menard's -- maybe -- and get more fittings.

I made it with a minute to spare, and this time got two connectors and two elbows. Just in case.

Of course, with those additional pieces in hand, I got the pipe right on the third attempt, and now I've got the extra fittings to be returned.


Anyway, I got the toilet pipe installed, grouted the floor with little to no extra problems. The grout was completed late in the evening of the 4th, the grout sealed on the 6th, and then the toilet and sink re-installed on Saturday the 8th (with only a small false start on the sink. The towel ring and toilet paper holder were then put in place, and the powder room is virtually complete.

OK, that's enough for tonight as I'm falling asleep.

Next, the tragic saga of the Cubs games.